Tuesday, 31 January 2017

I'm just a School Librarian Just a Librarian running a library service for 1500 people. Just the Issue Desk Clerk.Just a Shelver, because those books don't put themselves away.Just an Educator caring for 400+ students a day.

Just a Security Guard, Behaviour Manager and Loss Prevention Officer. Just running 4 different reading programmes and groups for around 300 people. Just a Cataloguer like that's not a whole other job in the library world. Just a CPD Trainer trying to keep staff in touch.Just a 1st (and 2nd, and sometimes 3rd) line IT Support Technician, mediating access, teaching skills, and troubleshooting problems. Just a Reprographics Tech, kicking the shit out of broken printers and teaching teachers how to copy double sided, or to scan.Just a Content Creator creating worksheets, and presentations and lesson plans and info lit resources.Just an Accountant making sure our department sticks to its budget and checking suppliers gets paid on time.Just the Purchasing officer, making sure the department has everything we need.Just a Trend Analyst trying to find the next Harry Potter, or Hunger Games, or Twilight, or Wimpy Kid so we don't miss the boat.Just a Social Media Manager, trying to stay relevant and up-to-date, to build connections with audiences and bridges with authors. Just an Event Planner, putting on and promoting events for anywhere between 50 and 200 people from across dozens of organisations, and getting them in the same place at the same time to do something spectacular.Just a Booking Agent hunting out authors and poets and storytellers to bring in.Just a Marketing officer and Graphic Designer, promoting library services and trying to find the best way to catch everyone's attention.Just the Press Officer, getting photos and writing copy and trying to get published. Just a Game Dev, designing activities and patching together bits of code to make learning easier. Just a Quiz Master, collecting and collating questions and trivia to support competitions and events. Just an Archivist, preserving and organising and promoting the school archives.Just the Copy Right Enforcement Officer, because no-one but you remembers the 10% rule, or why they shouldn't steal artwork from the internet. Just a Data Protection Officer with access to everyone's personal data and a responsibility to protect it including their loans data. Just a Funding Manager, because those funding opportunities don't bid for themselves. Just a walking book review & catalogue.Just a highly trained Researcher; if you don't know it I can find it out. Just a Liaison Officer negotiating with companies and departments and arguing about how much your dbases and e-books will cost. Just a Service Development Officer because a stagnant service is a dead service. Just a Survey taker, Data Analyst, and report writer, because we need to know what you want and we need to prove what we do. Just and Office Administrator, keeping everything filled and filled and organised.Just a Shopkeeper, cash handling and stocking and selling.Just a Systems Consultant, hunting out the technology to get the job done.Just a Polymath & freaking Information Ninja.But yeah, I am just a School Librarian.